Answers

Presented to MathWorld Interactive by MA Pet Detectives
of Shoreham, New York, USA

__ For our Math World problem this year we were asked to find the most
popular pet from ages 9-11 for Princess Sweet.

The information that we knew was that Princess Sweet was having a 10th birthday
and she said that she wanted a pet. So Prince Kindness (her brother) is trying
to figure out what the average pet is.

We had to survey all of the nine to eleven year olds in Miller Avenue on:
What pets do you have? How many legs do they have? How much does your pet
weigh? How tall is your pet? What color is you pet?

The materials that we needed were: computers, pencils or pens, paints, paper
and paint chips from the paint store.

The first step to this project was to predict what the top 10 favorite pets
would be. We put our predictions on a spreadsheet on the computer. The winner
of our predictions was dogs.

Our second step was to figure out how many kids had pets. We surveyed all
the fourth and fifth graders. The questions on this survey were: Do you have
any pets? Which one is your favorite pet? The idea of the survey was to see
how many people had pets.

Our third step was a follow-up survey. Our survey contained these questions:
What pets do you have? How many legs does it have? How tall is your pet?
How much does your pet weigh? We handed that survey out to all of the fourth
and fifth graders who had pets. On the back of the survey we recommended
ways for people to get their pets_ height and weight.

We got the results then we organized and analyzed the data. We tallied them
up in our notebooks and entered them on a spreadsheet on the computer. We
made individual data spreadsheets and type of pets by class spreadsheets.
We made an animal color spreadsheet too.

Our group averaged the results off. We averaged
the pets off using a mode average. For the average amount of legs and the
average height and weight, we used the mean average. For weight we had to
convert grams and ounces to pounds. For the average colors we used drops
of paint for when it showed up on the survey. We got paint chips from a paint
store and compared colors.

The results that we got were:

Average Pet: dog

Number of legs: 3.2

Average height: 11.7 inches

Average weight: 33.6 pounds

Average color: Soapstone

Most frequent color: White

We saw how the results compared to our predictions. We predicted that the
dog would be the favorite pet and we were correct. We were also correct with
the cat being the second favorite, and the fish being the third favorite.
With the other animal predictions, we were not as accurate. We enjoyed comparing
the predictions to the final results.

Finally we graphed the color of the pet and the type of the pet. We drew
the average pet by using the averages.

Extensions:

1) If you eliminate all the dog data. What would the second most popular
pet look like?

2) What is the average age of the pets?

3) Knowing the average pet is a dog, do a survey to find out the most popular
dog.

This GIF picture is the best of the drawings that the students did in Miller
Avenue School of the Average pet for the Math World 4-6 problem. The drawing
was based on all of the data we gathered.

We used the paint that we made from our data. Best of luck to Prince Kindness
and his efforts to find this animal.

Math
World gave us a problem. The problem was Princess Sweet was having a birthday.
She said she wanted a pet but she didnt say what kind of pet she wanted.
Prince Kindness, her brother, asked us to survey children with pets ages
9-11 to find the most popular pet. The things we needed were pencils, pens,
paper, kids 9-11, computer, spreadsheets and paint. We predicted what the
top 10 pets would be. We surveyed all the 4th and 5th graders who had pets
to find out what the average pet was. We asked: type, color, # of legs, height
and weight. On the back of the survey we gave hints on how to measure your
pets height and weight. When we got all of the information, we entered
it in our books. We then put all the information on 3 spreadsheets. One for
color, one for pet info, and one for individual data. After that we averaged
the data. To average the type we used a mode average. For color we used a
mode average, plus we did a mean average out of the number of paint drops.
For all the rest we used a mean average. We graphed pets and color. We used
all of our information to draw the animal. We found the most popular pet
was a dog. The dog we made up from all of the information was 11.7 inches
tall. It weighed 27.6 pounds and has 3.2 legs. The most common color was
white. The average color matched one of our house paints. That color was
called Cafe Grey. Our predictions were pretty close to the real
results. We predicted that dog would be the most popular pet and it was
Extension: Using the information that you have gathered. What is the
least favorite pet? What does it look like?